How To Autorun Programs On Windows Startup

Windows 7 brought some badly-needed security features to Microsoft’s flagship operating system, but with this new power came one minor setback: the ability to autorun programs with elevated privileges on startup. Instead of adjusting our overall security settings to not bother us requesting elevated privileges (a bad idea), we’re going to use the Task Scheduler tool to automate these tasks.

Locate the Task Scheduler by typing its name in the search box on the Start Menu. In the “Action” menu, click “Create Task…” (NOT“Create Basic Task…”)

In the “Create Task” window, give the task a name. For example, let’s use EventGhost. Make sure to select “Run only when user is logged on” and “Run with highest privileges” and to choose your correct version of Windows from the “Configure for” dropdown.

In the “Triggers” tab, click the “New…” button. Chose to begin the task “At log on” and select for “Any user”. Make sure no other options are checked besides “Enabled” and click OK.

In the “Actions” tab, click “New…” and make sure that “Start a program” is selected from the dropdown menu. Browse for your application executable (EventGhost.exe), add any arguments (if applicable), then click “OK”.

In the “Conditions” tab, nothing should be checked (unless you have a very specific case). Finally, in the “Settings” tab, check the options as they are in the screenshot below and click “OK”.

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